September 2, 2005
100 YEARS AGO IN THE FORWARD
A letter from Lublin, Poland, has arrived in the offices of the Forward, describing a horrific pogrom that occurred a few weeks ago on the night of Tisha B’av. As Jews sat on the floor of the synagogue reciting kinot (elegies) in memory of the destruction of the Temples in Jerusalem, local police and Cossacks broke in and began slaughtering people. About 100 badly wounded survivors were rounded up and thrown in jail. The entire town heard their cries and groans. It is rumored that a similar pogrom took place in Warsaw.
75 YEARS AGO IN THE FORWARD
In preparation for the upcoming High Holy Days, Moscow’s Yiddish communist daily paper, Der emes, is gearing up for a major anti-religious campaign. Last year, Soviet Jewish communists tried to turn Rosh Hashanah into a kind of Labor Day in which they attempted to raise funds for the purchase of an airplane named Birobidzhan. This year, Der emes contends, Jewish religious leaders have “crawled out of their holes” to combine forces with the reactionary Black Hundreds so that they can force religion on the people. The paper called for the publication of more anti-religious materials in Yiddish.
In response to the Brit Shalom organization’s attempt to foster a peace plan between the Arabs and Jews of Palestine, the Arab newspaper Al-Karmel has said that peace between the two will be possible only when the following conditions are met: The Jews must give up their hopes of a national home in Palestine; Jewish businesses must not compete with Arab businesses; 80% of the workers in Jewish-owned factories must be Arabs; Arabic will be the only official language of the country, and Jews must accept that Palestine will be part of a greater Arab federation.
50 YEARS AGO IN THE FORWARD
Despite the United Nations’ assurances that Egypt plans to halt attacks against Israel, four Israelis were found shot dead on the Israeli side of the Egyptian border. Shootings and sabotage acts have been occurring continuously along this hot border. As a result, the Israelis have communicated to the U.N. that it appears impossible to trust the Egyptians in this matter, and even E.L.M. Burns, a U.N. general, has told the Israelis that he cannot make guarantees regarding Egyptian actions. In response to the attacks, Israel shot down two Egyptian airplanes and informed Burns that if the onslaughts continue, it will be forced to take full-scale military action against Egypt.
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